Investigating requirements for introduction of automated warehouse operations

Abstract

The introduction of automated operations is gaining pace due to introduction of industry 4.0’s vision to achieve increased efficiency and cost savings. Companies operating warehouses thus, need to adapt their current Warehouse Management System (WMS) setup to fulfil the new system demands and requirements. This would require WMS in-house or through external help. The aim of this thesis is to study how the requirements and capabilities of a WMS setup change as a case company transition from manual to automated warehouse operations. By examining these new requirements and capabilities, a decision concerning whether the case company’s current WMS or an alternative WMS setup is required to handle the new demands and requirements posed upon the WMS will be made. The study has been performed by analysing a case company´s use of WMS and its warehouse operations through interviews and site visits. Interviews have been performed together with the managerial levels of warehouse, IT, and business departments to gain a greater understanding of the current situation and their requirements of a new WMS when transitioning to automated warehouse operations. The study has contributed with information concerning how companies can approach an elicitation of new requirements as they are to automate manual operations. It further provides information regarding how the requirements and demands upon a WMS shift as processes within a warehouse become automated. Some of the important findings of the study are: (a) High quality master data is important for companies as they are to automate since the automated operations rely on correct master data for efficient operations without standstills. (b) Important to prepare the WMS to handle automation since the introduction of automation brings new requirements on capabilities of the WMS. (c) 3rd party WMS applications when applied to a company’s current WMS for improved functionalities could result in synchronization problems that could affect the company’s operations. (d) A company standardise their operations before they implement automation, the implementation process of the automated operations would become easier. The reason for this was due to that the company will get simplified processes that is easier to translate into automated operations. (e) Reduce wrongful data scanning or manage of data, since wrongful data cause input of wrong master data to other systems which will create constraints when implementing automated warehouse operations. These findings have provided an valuable insight into how companies need to adapt their WMS as they are to implement automated operations.